Extra Credits
Published on 22 Sep 2018After Raden Vijaya passed away, the crown passed on to his son Jayanagara — along with his reputation to create scandal and vice. Gajah Mada, whose name literally meant “elephant general” stepped up to make sure that the kingdom would run smoothly — maybe a little too smoothly.
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September 25, 2018
Kingdom of Majapahit – Master of Intrigue – Extra History – #3
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China’s anti-Japanese attitudes
From the time that Japan broke out of its self-imposed isolation in the late 19th century, China has been one of its main targets, first for military action and more recently for economic expansion and competition. Japan’s reputation in China would have been bad enough even without the Japanese Imperial presence in large portions of China from 1937 through 1945, but the wounds from the Second Sino-Japanese War have never healed.
Last week, Nick Taber reported on some surprisingly intense anti-Japanese sentiments he encountered in China:
In 2017 in a rust-belt city in Northeast China I hopped in a taxi and began chatting with my driver who, when the conversation turned to politics, nonchalantly told me that he wished that the Chinese Government would kill every single Japanese person on the planet. I found this extreme to say the least, so I double-checked just in case my Chinese was failing me, “You mean kill every single Japanese man, woman, and child?”
“Yes, exactly,” he said.
Guessing by his apparent age I wrote my driver off as a fringe extremist whose possibly restricted worldview was likely shaped during the throes of the Cultural Revolution. I presumed that the vast majority of Chinese people today would decisively denounce this kind of violent sentiment of genocide. This presumption was wrong.
Chinese genocidal hatred against the Japanese simply cannot be dismissed as the bigotry of a nationalist fringe movement. Anti-Japanese sentiment is in fact so engrained in Chinese culture that it has become not only a political utility and form of patriotism but even a solid go-to branding opportunity.
The CEO of a major company in Hebei province sets his username on Weibo (China’s Twitter) to “killer of Japanese devils” and likewise a news anchor of a regional TV station sets his Weibo username to “destroy Japanese devils.” Weibo also has hundreds of users with the phrase “bomb Japan” in their username, and after a devastating 6.1 magnitude earthquake struck Osaka in June, the natural disaster began trending on Weibo with a large number of Chinese netizens lamenting that more Japanese people had not been killed. As one user put it, “The whole nation of Japan should perish as soon as possible. It’s an evil race that has infuriated god.”
Certainly not all Chinese hold such genocidal or hateful views. There is a sizeable minority that even frown upon these views and a growing number of more internationally-minded Chinese who have Japanese friends or study in Japan so are at the very least suspicious of this hate. Some Chinese even see this sentiment, in part, as a product of government propaganda and brainwashing. As The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) manages uncertainty over the future of its leadership, it exploits nationalism to boost its popularity and the painful memories of WWII anti-Japanese sentiment provides a relatively low-cost, high-yield opportunity for this purpose.
Chinese citizens who do openly support Japan in any way, shape, or form also risk being seen as traitors. Another user commenting on the Osaka tragedy remarked, “Any Chinese people in Osaka right now travelling or shopping? They should be buried together with the Japanese”.
In 2017, the China Badminton Super League told their own Lin Dan, the number one badminton champion in the world, that he would be forbidden from competing in the playoffs because he had a sponsorship contract with the Japanese sports brand Yonex. In 2012, the Chinese actress Li Bingbing refused to travel to Japan to promote her film, Resident Evil 5, saying that she “personally cannot handle it emotionally”.
The origin of China’s anti-Japanese sentiment lies in the Chinese theater of World War II when the Imperial Japanese Army committed scores of harrowing war crimes on Chinese soil including the mass killing of civilians, sexual slavery, human experimentation, and cannibalism that resulted in the deaths of 10 to 20 million Chinese people.
Bodies of victims along Qinhuai River out of Nanjing’s west gate during Nanjing Massacre.
Detail of original photo by Moriyasu Murase, 村瀬守保 via Wikimedia Commons.
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Belgium Under German Occupation During WW1 I THE GREAT WAR On The Road
The Great War
Published on 24 Sep 2018Visit the Ijser museum: http://www.museumaandeijzer.be/ijzert…
Indy talks to Peter Verplancke about Belgium during World War 1, in particular the German occupation policies.
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Is the UK military situation really as dire as this new book portrays?
In the Daily Mail, there’s an excerpt from a new book on the British military by Michael Ashcroft and Isabel Oakeshott, White Flag? An Examination Of The UK’s Defence Capability:
HMS Astute (S119), lead ship of her class, sails up the Clyde estuary into her home port of Faslane, Scotland.
MOD photo, via Wikimedia Commons.
Bluntly, at a time of international crisis, when the prime minister wanted to take a stand against the illegal use of chemical weapons, our Armed Forces did not have what was needed for a full-throttle response.
Naturally, ministers preferred voters to imagine that submarines were on their way to the action. The truth about our limited capability might have fuelled creeping fears that the UK has run up the white flag.
This was one of the many shocks we had during our wide-ranging investigation into the state of this country’s defence capabilities. Thanks to remorseless cuts imposed by successive governments, the Army, Navy and RAF all struggle to meet day-to-day commitments to protect this country and play their part in collective security through Nato and other defence alliances — let alone prepare for serious potential new threats.
The particular problem this time was probably down to maintenance issues.
Hulls need cleaning to stop them rusting, engines need overhauling and nuclear reactors need to be flushed.
When you don’t have very many ships, taking one or two out of circulation leaves quite a gap — in this case, one that could not be filled.
And the fact is that we don’t have enough ships any more. Or aircraft. Or tanks. Or military personnel. Not since Defence became a soft target for governments looking to cut spending.
A British army Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank, of 1 Royal Regiment of Fusiliers (1RRF), is shown returning to base after completing a firing mission as part of Exercise MedMan.
1RRF Battle group were based at the British Army Training Unit Suffield (BATUS) in Canada.
MOD photo by Mike Weston via Wikimedia Commons.
What this means on the front line is illustrated by the small but fierce battalion of 800 UK troops stationed at a remote base in the Baltic state of Estonia as a crucial part of Nato’s defences against a Russian attack. They are on their guard at all times, scouring the bleak horizon for anything suspicious.
Inside a vast metal hangar is a fleet of Challenger tanks. The Army wanted to send 18 but the MoD cut this back to ten, of which only eight can be operational because two will always be in for repairs.
Asked if this would be enough if the Russians came over the border, the men we met there shrugged and laughed. They know full well that the Russians could throw as many as 22 tank battalions — that’s more than 650 tanks — at them.
A war-gaming exercise concluded that Nato forces would be ‘woefully inadequate’ in the event of an invasion: the Russians would be in Tallinn, the Estonian capital, within 60 hours.
No wonder the men themselves refer to their assignment as ‘Operation Tethered Goat’. Hopelessly outnumbered, they would be brushed aside, sacrificed to the predatory Putin, like the goat swallowed by the T. rex in Jurassic Park.
Amazons – fierce fighting tribe or just ancient Greek porn?
Lindybeige
Published on 21 Jun 2011You can believe in them if you want, but if you do, you should out of fairness to other mythological characters believe in giants, cyclopes, griffins, and gorgons.
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QotD: The Laffer Curve
Around a certain sort of leftist mention of the Laffer Curve just brings a derisive snort. The sadness of that reaction being that it’s just an obvious mathematical truth. Tax rates of 0 % and 100 % bring in no revenue. Somewhere in between maximises the moolah. Note what isn’t being said, that all tax cuts always pay for themselves, nor even that lower tax rates are necessarily a good thing. Only that there’s some optimal level with regard to revenue collection.
All the arguments about the optimal level of government are over in the Wagner Curve and such others.
The Laffer Curve is also made up of two components, the income and substitution. Some people will work just to make their nut. Observational studies have shown that many taxi drivers do. So, increase their tax rates and they’ll work more. The substitution effect is, well, what’s that net wage worth to me? What’s the value of not working? When going fishing is worth more than working then people will go fishing. The curve as a whole is the interplay of these two effects.
Each tax in each society has its own such curve. A transactions tax of 0.01% can reduce revenue collection, as the EU’s study of a financial transactions tax shows us. Taxes upon income of 20% are below that Laffer Curve peak.
But where, exactly, is that peak for taxes upon income? The best study we’ve got, Saez and Diamond, says between 54% and 80% dependent upon other structures in the tax system. The Tory part of the UK Treasury says around 40 to 45% for income tax, plus national insurance, so at the bottom end of that S&D range. Many lefties want to say it’s higher so we can tax “the rich” more.
Tim Worstall, “How Lovely To Spot The Laffer Curve In The Wild – Doctors’ Pensions Edition”, Continental Telegraph, 2018-09-05.
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